Creature

This article is an overview of how the player interacts with the game during different stages.

The term creature in Spore refers to the organism controlled by the player. The term is mostly relevant to the Creature stage, because that is the stage where the player controls a single creature. The creature begins the game as a micro-organism, cell.

In the Cell stage, the player interacts with the world with a "cell".
The objective here is to consume food to gather "DNA Points". The cell can then find a mate and lay an egg. This takes the player to the Cell Editor where one can give different abilities to the cell by adding parts, ranging from stronger weapons to various forms of movement.

As the generations go on, the cell grows larger and the camera pulls out until the cell becomes a multi-cellular organism, most often referred to as the creature.

After the cell stage, however, cells do not make another appearance in the game.

Creatures, also known as "animal creatures", are non-sapient creatures. They appear in every stage (except for the Cell Stage).
In the Creature Stage, the player takes control of a creature in a 3D environment in which a planet (and its species) are randomly generated to explore. Players can interact with other creatures and objects to gain DNA which in turn is used as currency to add/customize the creature in the Creature Creator, as well as necessary to progress through the stage. Creatures can also gain pack members (to a maximum of 3, matching the 3 mini-stages of Creature Stage).

In the Tribal Stage, the player controls the tribal members in RTS format. The player can command from single to a group of members to take action on selected object(s) (e.g attack, impress, gather, etc). As the player progress though this stage, there will appear several tribes that contain other tribe members. Sometimes they will attack or gift depending on their relationship with the player's tribe.

In the Space Stage, they appear in tribes on random planets. Sometimes, other empires request the player to abduct and bring the ordered tribe member on specific time.

Civilization creatures are sapient creatures, much similar to the Tribal creatures. They appear in the Civilization Stage and the Space Stage, with no prior appearances before.

In the Civilization Stage, the player takes control of a nation in which the player are able to interact with other nations, tribes, geysers, and customize their own vehicles and cities using the Building Creator or Vehicle Creator. The player's nation's civilization type (Religious, Economic, Military) solely depends on the consequence they achieved in Tribal Stage. Players starting in Civilization Stage are able to pick which civilization type they'd like to be.

This also marks the first time transmissions are used in the game, before Space Stage.

Each creature has its own set of genetics, which is (in practical terms) the procedural code compressed to a small size which generates the 3D creature on a player's machine. You cannot create a creature without a mouth, as it needs food to survive. At least one mouth is required to live.

Creature sizes range from mouse sized to truly gigantic. The player cannot create an Epic Creature without mods (in Space stage the player can unlock the Supersizer tool, and can make Epics in the adventure creator), the largest creature so far known in Spore, as the game uses procedural generation to create them. For example, a normal creature might be as tall as you, while an epic creature can grow up higher than the trees. The epics can be destroyed more easily in the space stage, due to the fact your spaceship can run away faster and has stronger weapons. Hyper Size creatures are bigger than Epics, and may exist on vast, unknown worlds.

Aquatic life was originally included in the game as an option for the player's creature, but they were removed due to animation difficulties (player would need to navigate in three dimensions underwater).

This does not mean that aquatic creatures do not exist on the planet- example include fish caught by tribes, the cell stage and the Sea Monster, but rather the player cannot play as one. Some might say the Sea Monster that barrows up from the earth (dirt or land) when glitch is in effect is called the "Dirt Fish" or "Monster From the Underworld" but it is currently the "Glitch Monster of Water"

Any creature can fly if given a single or pair of wings, which are available in the detail section of the creature creator, and can only be used effectively in the creature stage, however a creature will fly long distances in the tribal stage. The level determines how long one can fly, and the skill is called (more appropriately) glide.

Glide also adds the "Jump" ability, but will override it, leaving the creature only to glide (even when pressing on the jump button)

In the GDC 2005 presentation about Spore you can see a little creature flying away from behind a rock after the Willosaur escaped from the spidery creature and Will Wright says "...on the other hand this guy is kinda fast...", talking about his Willosaur. Also, a more defined bird-creature can be seen in the presentation as the Willosaur emerges from the water and onto land, the bird is seen on top of a tree and flies across to reappear again to fly above another tree and into the distance.

According to Gamespot it was seemingly impossible to create a flying creature during the E3 playable demo of the Create a Creature system.

In a demonstration at Gadgetoff 2007, Will Wright created a winged creature in the creature editor. Despite having large wings relative to its body size which displayed some functionality once in the game world, i.e. they flapped as the creature walked, the creature did not ever take flight.[1]
However an article published on the 13th of February 2008 at bit-tech.net claimed that placing wings on a creature would allow it to take flight.[2]

In the final game, true flight, like amphibious creatures has been cut. Like amphibious creatures an element of flight is still in the game with the creature creator having four types of wings that allow the players character to 'fly' for different lengths of time. Only the highest level wings allow a creature to achieve anything resembling true flight.

In the new expansion pack for Spore - Spore Galactic Adventures, the player's captain can be outfitted with a jet pack. If the hero flies too high, lightning can strike the player's creature on planets with high atmosphere.